SNL predicts significant OTT growth in Poland

Poland had an 88.7 per cent multichannel penetration rate at the end of 2013, the highest in the Eastern Europe region, reports SNL Kagan. The country’s broadband penetration rate was 48.5 per cent, leaving a gap between multichannel and broadband penetration rates of a little more than 40 points.

Despite a challenging situation for OTT growth, SNL Kagan expects the market to see significant near- to medium-term growth given the various OTT initiatives being implemented by online video providers.

DTH platform Cyfrowy Polsat SA maintains its dominance in the OTT aggregator sector with its average number of unique users reaching approximately 4.6 million per month, as of June 2014. It has also added Toshiba smart TVs to its list of supported devices.

New OTT players in Poland include Google Play, launched in March 2014, and PlayPuls, launched by Telewizja Puls in August 2014.

Poland’s state-owned public broadcasting company, Telewizja Polska (TVP) operates an ad-based catch-up TV service with full-length shows and news programmes with the aim of, like many Polish broadcasters, increasing and diversifying viewership.

Smart TV manufacturers Samsung Electronics, Philips and Panasonic have been growing their content slate since August 2014,. Some of Samsung’s recent content partners include Cineman.pl, Ninateka and wp.tv; Philips has added Vimeo and Maxdome; and Panasonic has added Vimeo, TVN and Dailymotion.

While OTT services may be quite limited for internet streaming players, including Apple TV, Sony’s Network Media Player and Western Digital’s WD TV Live, SNL Kagan anticipates that manufacturers will continue to enter into deals with content aggregators and offer better video options to the market in the medium to long term, which should increase device uptake.